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Re: Testivus - Testing For The Rest Of Us
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Posted: Feb 9, 2007 12:54 PM
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> Alberto: in general, I agree with your sentiment; however, > I do want to point to one part of it that I find a little > troubling. > > > <h2>Less testing dogma, more testing karma</h2> > > The one problem I have with this statement is the people > who confuse "dogma" with "suggestion". Quite often, when I > espoused TDD as a design technique, or defended JUnit's > "limitations" as having good influence on my design, > people accused me of being dogmatic. It seems to be the > "silver bullet" argument designed to shut down any > suggestion that difficulty testing indicates a design > problem worth exploring. While I agree that suggestions > made with little experience and with little understanding > of the other person's situation can be dogmatic, > suggestions made with thorough experience and careful > consideration of the other person's situation is most > certainly not dogmatic. I suppose it's not always easy to > tell the difference. > > So while I agree with the idea of less dogma, more karma, > I'd like to add a footnote: "Be sure you can tell the > difference between advice and dogma." > > Take care.
Hi J.B.,
Great to hear from you. I "sort-of" see your point. I say "sort-of" because I believe that most people can differentiate between dogma and well-informed recommendations/suggestions.
Taking your book "JUnit Recipes" and your various posts as a example, it's very clear to me (and I believe to everyone who reads it) that you are offering options and suggestions. The advice is in the form: "X works best for Y" or "Consider Z", or "If you do A, it will make testing easier." I don't think I've ever heard you say things like "this is the only way".
But, and I won't name names, there are a lot of people out there who claim that the only way to achieve "salvation" through testing is to practice X, only X, and all of X - all the time. That's what I consider dogma and that's what turns a lot of people off the idea of developer testing.
I am actually surprised that most people did not object to the phrasing of "Less testing dogma, more testing karma".
After writing it I realized that, perhaps, less should have been replaced by no: "No testing dogma, just testing karma."
Should there be any dogma in Testivus?
I believe so, a movement without at least one code tenet is a movement about nothing - to stay with the Seinfeld theme.
Perhaps the only dogma is that "developers should take responsibility for testing their own code."
Thoughts?
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